Bobbin handling system



Aug. 8, 1967 J. K. M COLLOUGH ETAL 3,334,740

BOBBIN HANDLING SYSTEM Filed Dec. 5, 1964 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTORS JOHN K.MCCOLLOUGH GRADY H. SANDERS ATTORNEY g- 1967 J. K. MCCOLLOUGH ETAL 3,334,740

BOBBIN HANDLING SYSTEM 5 Sheets-Sheet Filed Dec.

INVENTORS JOHN K. MC CO LL 0 UGH GR A DY H. SA N DE RS BY ATTORNEY 1967 J. K. MCCOLLOUGH ETAL. 3,334,740

BOBBIN HANDLING- SYSTEM Filed Dec. 5, 1964 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 PHOTO 9 CELL PHOTO- CELL 5 INVENTORS JOHN K.MCCOLLOUGH BCI-J RADY H. SANDERS mam ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,334,740 BOBBIN HANDLING SYSTEM John K. McCullough and Grady H. Sanders, Spartanburg,

S.C., assignors to Deering Millikan Research Corporation, Spartanburg, S.C., a corporation of Delaware Filed Dec. 3, 1964, Ser. No. 415,592 6 Claims. (Cl. 209-1115) This invention relates generally to the handling of bobbins, quills or the like and in particular to the handling of bobbins, quills or the like which have had yarn disposed therefrom.

In the past when bobbins have come from the winders or quills from the loom it has been necessary to manually inspect all such bobbins, quills or the like to determine whether any yarn has been left on the bobbins or quill. Further, such inspection encompasses the determination as to Whether the yarn left on the bobbin or quill should be rerun or whether such yarn should be stripped off and discarded as waste. In recent years the textile industry has been automating bobbin handling systems in order to eliminate unnecessary use of manual labor in order to expedite the handling of bobbins, quills or the like and at the same time reduce operating costs. Prior to this invention no commercial efficient system has been developed which will take empty bobbins, quills or the like and automatically inspect to determine Whether yarn has been left thereon and then make a determination as to the disposition of the bobbins, quills or the like.

Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide an automatic handling system which will inspect bobbins, quills or the like and automatically reject those which still have yarn thereon.

Another object of the invention is to provide an automatic handling system which will inspect bobbins, quills or the like and automatically send some bobbins, quills or the like to a position to be rerun and send other bobbins, quills or the like to another position to be stripped.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a handling system which will automatically supply completely empty bobbins, quills or the like to the point of use without manual inspection thereof.

Also, it is an object of this invention to provide an automatic bobbin, quill or the like handling system which is efiicient in operation and provides a cost reduction to the user.

Further objects and advantages of the invention will become clearly apparent from the following specification taken in connection with the drawings which form part of this application, and in which:

FIGURE 1 is a schematic perspective view of an overall bobbin handling system;

FIGURE 2 is a top view of the bobbin inspection station;

FIGURE 3 is a side view of the bobbin handling station shown in FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 4 is a cross-sectional view taken on line 44 of FIGURE 2; and

FIGURE 5 is a schematic electrical circuit diagram of the bobbin handling system of FIGURES 1-4.

This invention relates to the handling of any bobbin, quill or the likethat may have yarn thereon which it is desired to detect in order to eliminate such bobbin, quill or the like from the handling system. For the sake of discussion and illustration a bobbin handling system will be discussed with the detection system being located between a winder and an automatic loading station Where the empty bobbins are delivered for placement on a spinning frame.

Looking at FIGURE 1, the reference number depicts a winder on which yarn from the bobbins 12 is Wound onto a cheese, not shown, and the empty bobbins are 3,334,740 Patented Aug. 8, 1967 placed on an endless conveyor belt 14 for ultimate delivery to another endless conveyor 16 for delivery to the bobbin loading station, not shown. In most winding operations some of the bobbins will be delivered to the belt 14 before the bobbin is completely empty. Some of these bobbins will have only a few wraps of yarn thereon while others will have as much as 5 or 6 inches of yarn thereon. To automate the bobbin handling system it is necessary to eliminate these bobbins from the system so that only completely empty bobbins are delivered to the loading station by the conveyor 16. At the same time, for the sake of economy, it is desired to automatically separate the bobbins with a little yarn on them from the bobbins that have a lot of yarn on them, the bobbins with a little yarn on them being stripped and the yarn sold as waste while the other bobbins are returned to the Winders to complete unwinding of the yarn from the bobbin.

As previously pointed out, FIGURE 1 represents a schematic representation of the overall system where bobbins 12 on conveyor 14 are delivered to endless conveyor 18 from whence they are delivered to endless conveyor 20. As the bobbins 12 travel up the endless conveyor 20 the bobbins 12 with a lot of yarn still thereon are blown in the bin 22 by the air nozzle 24 and the bobbins 12 with a little yarn are blown into the bin 26 by air nozzle 28. The rest of the bobbins 12 pass from conveyor 20 into chute 30 Where they slide onto endless conveyor 32 which delivers them to the endless conveyor 16 which in turn conveys the empty bobbins to the loading station, not shown. For the sake of illustration bins 22 and 26 are shown receiving the partially empty bobbins but it is obvious that these bobbins also could be automatically conveyed to the desired area by any desired means, such as other endless conveyors.

Looking now to FIGURES 2-4 the bobbin detection and ejection operation will be explained. For the sake of discussion it is assumed that bobbins with less than two inches of yarn thereon will be stripped and those with more than two inches of yarn will be reconveyed to the winder. It is within the scope of the invention to select other lengths of yarn to differentiate between waste yarn bobbins and those to be sent back to the winders.

The conveyor 20 consists basically of upstanding wall members 34 and 36 welded or otherwise secured to belt platform member 38 which defines the path of travel of the belt 40. At the position opposite the air nozzles 24 and 28 the wall member 34 has been cut at two points 42 and 44 which are spaced from one another a distance slightly greater than the length of the longest bobbin handled in the system. The wall portion 46 between the points 42 and 44 are rolled over as shown in FIGURE 4 to provide a smooth exit for the bobbins 12. Each of the corners 48 and 50 adjacent the wall portion 46 are bent outwardly to aid in guiding the exit of a bobbin from the belt 40 by either the air nozzle 24 or the air nozzle 28.

Upstream of each of the rolled over wall portion 46 and mounted on the opposite side wall member 36 is an angle iron member 76 which supports the light sources 51 and 53 and the photocells 52 and 54 in a position adjacent the openings 56 in the wall member 36. The sources of light 51 and 53 are mounted at an angle of approximately 45 so that any light area on the bobbin will reflect the light into the respective photocell 52 and 54.

Most bobbins and quills or the like have a ferrule 57 at the large end thereof which is made of a reflective material and will give a false signal to the photocell when passing the light source. To prevent such false signal the cleat member 58 which is mounted on the belt 40 is provided with an upstanding wall member 60 which is high enough to hide the ferrule on the bobbin. This cleat member 58 can be either made from a nonreflective material or reflective material painted black, or both.

The herein disclosed system basically operates on the principle of using a light source to beam a light on the bob-bin as it passes the light source. If there is yam on the bobbin the light from the light source will be reflected back into the photocell by the yarn. In the preferred form of the invention the photocell .52 is actuated only when the light is reflected on it for a certain predetermined length of time while the photocell 54 is actuated almost instantaneously upon the receipt of a light beam.

Looking now to FIGURES l4 in conjunction with the circuit diagram shown in FIGURE 5 assume .that a bobbin 12 is traveling in the direction indicated in FIGURE 2 and has more than two inches of yarn thereon, the two inches of yarn being long enough to reflect light from the light source long enough to actuate the photocell 52. 'Photocell 52 will close contacts 62, thereby energizing time delay switch coil 64. Energization of coil 64 will pull in time delay switch 65, thereby energizing solenoid 66 to supply air to air nozzle 24. When the bobbin 12 moves up to a position adjacent the nozzle 24 the air pressure will throw the bobbin 12 01f the conveyor belt 40 and into the bin 22. When the bobbin has passed the light source 51 and the contacts 62 have opened solenoid valve 66 will remain energized until the time delay switch 65 opens. The amount of time delay of switch 65 depends on the length of bobbin, speed of the belt 40, and the distance between the photocell and the air nozzle.

Assume now that a bobbin 12 is on the conveyor belt 40 and has only a few wraps of yarn thereon of a length less than two inches and is traveling as indicated in FIGURE 2. As the bobbin passes the photocell 52 nothing will happen because there is not sufiicient reflective surface on the bobbin to reflect the light from the light source to the photocell long enough to actuate the photocell 52. The bobbin 12 will then continue to travel until its passes the light source 53 and photocell 54. Instantaneously the photocell 54 will be actuated pulling the contacts 68, thereby energizing coil 70. Energization of coil 70 will close time delay switch 72, thereby energizing solenoid valve 74 to supply air to air nozzle 28. As the bobbin passes the air nozzle 28 the bobbin will be blown off the belt 40 by the air pressure from air nozzle into the bin 26. As .with switch time delay switch 65 above, time delay switch 72 will not open to deenergize the air solenoid valve 74 until a certain predetermined length of time has passed which is sufiicient to blow the bobbin off the belt.

It is obvious that it a bobbin with no yarn thereon passes either photocell 52 or 54 that the circuits will not be. activated since the only light reflective portion on the 'bobbin, which is the ferrule 57, shielded from the light sources 51 and 53 by the cleat 58.

The herein disclosed object handling system automatically and efliciently detects and ejects bobbins, quills or the like from the system which have undesired yaIn thereon. Furthermore, the novel system not only detects and ejects such bobbins, quills or the like but also automatically discriminates between the ejected bobbins in order to separate waste yarn bobbins from bobbins which can beefliciently and economically rerun.

Although we have described in detail the preferred embodiment of our invention, it is contemplated that many changes may be made without departing from the scope or spirit of our invention and we desire to be limited only by the claims.

That which is claimed is:

1. A bobbin handling system comprising: an endless conveyor, means supplying bobbin to said endless conveyor, a first photoelectric detection means operably associated with said conveyor to detect bobbins which have yarn thereon greater than a certain predetermined length, a first bobbin ejecting means operably associated with said conveyor, a second photoelectric detection means operably associated with said conveyor and located downstream of said first photoelectric detection means to detect bobbins having yarn thereon, a second bobbin ejecting means operably associated with said conveyor, time delay means operably associated with said first and second bobbin ejecting means, means interconnecting said first photoelectric detection means and said first ejecting means to eject bobbins from said conveyor which have greater than a certain predetermined length of yarn thereon when detected by said first photoelectric detection means, and means interconnecting said second photoelectric detection means and said second ejection means to eject any bobbins which have yarn thereon which were not ejected by said first ejection means, said time delay means delaying the actuation of said first and second ejection means until the detected bobbin has moved from the detection means to a position adjacent the ejecting means.

2. The structure of claim 1 wherein said first and second ejection means are air nozzles supplied with air under pressure.

3. The structure of claim 1 wherein said endless conveyor has a plurality of cleats thereon each with an upstanding flange member, the base of each bobbin on said conveyor being located in said cleat member whereby said flange member shields the base of the bobbin from said photoelectric detection means.

4. A bobbin handling system comprising: a conveying means, said conveying means having a plurality of cleat members thereon, said cleats having at least one upstanding Wall member, means supplying bobbins to said conveying means, a first bobbin with greater than a predetermined length of yarn thereon located with the base thereof in one of said cleat members, a second bobbin with less than a predetermined length of yarn thereon located with the base thereof in another of said cleat members, and photoelectric operated detection and ejecting means responsive to the detection of yarn on said first and second bobbins to eject said first and second bobbins from said conveying means into separate bobbin receivers, said wall member on said cleats acting to prevent the detection of a false signal by said photoelectric detection and ejecting means.

5. A bobbin handling system comprising: a conveying means with cleats thereon, said cleats having at least one upstanding 'wall member, means supplying bobbins to said conveying means with the bases thereof in said cleats, bobbin ejection means operably associated with said conveying means, photoelectric detection means operably associated with said conveying means and means interconnecting said bobbin ejection means and said photoelectric means to actuate said ejection means to eject bobbins from said conveying means when said photoelectric means detects the presence of yarn on such bobbins, said wall member of said cleats preventing the detection of said bobbin base to prevent a false signal. v

6. The structure of claim 5 wherein said interconnecting means includes a time delay means to allow said bobbins to pass from said photoelectric means to said ejection means.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS M. HENSON WOOD, JR., Primary Examiner.

R. A. SCHACHER, Assistant Examiner. 

5. A BOBBIN HANDLING SYSTEM COMPRISING: A CONVEYING MEANS WITH CLEATS THEREON, SAID CLEATS HAVING AT LEAST ONE UPSTANDING WALL MEMBER, MEANS SUPPLYING BOBBINS TO SAID CONVEYING MEANS WITH THE BASES THEREOF IN SAID CLEATS, BOBBIN EJECTION MEANS OPERABLY ASSOCIATED WITH SAID CONVEYING MEANS, PHOTOELECTRIC DETECTION MEANS OPERABLY ASSOCIATED WITH SAID CONVEYING MEANS AND MEANS INTERCONNECTING SAID BOBBIN EJECTION MEANS AND SAID PHOTOELECTRIC MEANS TO ACTUATE SAID EJECTIONS MEANS TO EJECT BOBBINS FROM SAID CONVEYING MEANS WHEN SAID PHOTOELECTRIC MEANS DETECTS THE PRESENCE OF YARN ON SUCH BOBBINS, SAID WALL MEMBER OF SAID CLEATS PREVENTING THE DETECTION OF SAID BOBBIN BASE TO PREVENT A FALSE SIGNAL. 